PARK AND CEMETERY 
65 
STREET TREES.— IL 
Provide well prepared loam if success with street 
trees is desired. Continuous channels and not only 
a small “tree-hole” of prepared loam should be pro- 
vided. Expense is often a deterrent in the special 
preparation of soil. 
If buildings and cellar walls are sufficiently dis- 
tant from the curb to enable the roots to penetrate 
as great an area as the ambitus the tree attains under 
normal circumstances, the best preparation would 
be to thoroughly trench and if necessary fer- 
tilise an area equal to this and about 5 feet in depth. 
Whether cultivating and fertilizing or adding another 
ingredient or even excavating the entire body of soil 
and filling in specially prepared loam is necessary, is 
a matter best solved in each case and local district. 
Unless the sort of tree to be planted does not re- 
quire such preparation or where the porosity, aera- 
tion, drainage and fertility of the soil existsinaproper 
degree ; provision other than that which secures these 
essentials should be regarded as temporary or but 
partially complete. 
Soils exceptionally light and porous may well have 
heavier loam added without necessarily inducing ill 
effects, but in heavy, impervious and retentive soils 
drainage should be perfect to a depth at least as 
great as the depth of the excavation for the tree pit. 
The soil filled in should be approximately of the 
same weight and general mechanical character as 
that in which the excavation is made. To neglect 
these precautions may result in the formation of a 
blind well and the collection in the tree hole of the 
ground water in the immediate vicinity or even that 
of an entire hillside. 
Grading has considerable influence upon the 
growth of newly planted trees. Instances of where 
old American ashes. Red oaks, etc., have reconciled 
themselves to a cut near their base are not rare. The 
destruction of American chestnuts and white pines 
by raising the elevation of the soil in which they are 
growing is not rare. The added thriftiness of Amer- 
ican elms when planted in soil recently filled in is 
likewise a matter of not infrequent observation. But 
a cut or fill is apt to disturb the water table to a great- 
er extent than is ordinarily supposed. Following 
such disturbances are various mechanical and chem- 
ical changes in the soil, which sometimes make the 
cultivation of trees upon it very difficult. This would 
be apt to show itself with some sorts of trees more 
than with others. An extreme case would likely oc- 
cur where very light textured loam was filled to a 
great depth over a heavy and stiff or a soggy and 
puddled soil. 
Other disturbers of natural forces are asphalt pave- 
ments and the weight of wagons and horses passing 
over the roots of trees. 
The difficulty of cultivating trees in streets where 
the cellars extend out to the curbs need not be dis- 
cussed further than to mention that commercial needs 
and tall buildings are likely to warrant the omission 
of shade trees in such districts, otherwise a solution 
is neither impossible nor impracticable. 
In deciding upon the width of planting strips, the 
minimum should be, providing the option exists, not 
less than four feet. 
Where the weight of sidewalks is or probably 
will be heavy by reason of their width, the material used 
or their use by pedestrians, and where those walks 
are on soil permeated by the roots of street shade 
trees, additional measures may be advantageously 
adopted for most trees. Excavating a trench from 
the tree location to the opposite side of the sidewalk 
and filling in with nutritious loam induces the roots 
to follow such a channel and connect with the loam 
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on the opposite side of the walk. Connection be- 
tween such bodies of loam is more thoroughly and 
substantially preserved by masonry arches built over 
the connecting channels. 
Trees should be planted firm and erect. 
In planting the usual nursery sized trees, i. e., from 
5 to 14 feet in height, those reared in a nursery are 
preferable to those collected from the woods. 
In general a first class tree should be a seedling 
in good health, thrifty, free from disease or injurious 
affections. It should be on its own roots — 
grafted trees are usually less desirable and 
sometimes wholly unsuited. They should have 
been transplanted two years previous ; have- 
been grown in fertile, loamy soil; have a 
